Royal Dutch Shell today inked three outsourcing deals – worth $4.2bn over five years – to spin out IT and telecoms operations.

In January, a leaked memo to staff revealed the oil company was in outsourcing talks with EDS, AT&T and T-Systems.

Today, Shell sealed separate agreements with those companies and said most of its 3,200-strong IT workforce will transfer to the service providers.

The contracts kick off on 1 July, and see AT&T scoop up network and telecommunications, T-Systems getting hosting and storage, and EDS tackling end user computing services.

According to Shell, “minimal redundancies” are inevitable, but it has not revealed numbers affected.

In a canned statement, the firm said the decision will deliver "important [but unspecified] financial benefits".

Last month Shell told UK trade union reps at Unite that it aimed to reduce costs by £250m by outsourcing its global IT infrastructure business.

Shell announced record full-year earnings of £13.9bn in February. ®

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